


A Seize of Collateral

by DictionaryWrites



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Eye Trauma, Gore, Horror, Kissing, M/M, Murder, POV Peter Lukas, Power Dynamics, Suicidal Thoughts, the spiral (the magnus archives) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:11:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21976417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Gertrude Robinson is unable to stop the Great Twisting.Peter makes do.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 27
Kudos: 151





	A Seize of Collateral

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leftofrevolution](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/gifts).

> For a request for Elias/Peter in a world destroyed by one of the other entities.

The _Tundra_ ran aground on the yellow beach outside Shoeburyness, and she keeled hard to one side with a judder that hit from the base of Peter’s spine all the way up to the back of his teeth. He heard the rusted creak of a few of the shipping containers above breaking free of their moorings with the force of the slam, crunching against one another, and he managed to save himself from hitting hard against the metal wall.

He heard a few cries and moans of pain, shouts for help up and down some of the decks, but none of them sounded incredibly urgent – injured limbs, perhaps, but none are the wheezing shouts of anyone crushed beneath machinery. In any case, the census of those still alive was Tadeus’ responsibility – Peter had more interesting things to do.

He could feel the change in the world as he came onto the strangely balmy air of the deck, and he was forced to move slowly and ungracefully to the edge of it, the ship at a forty-five degree angle… The air itself was thick as molasses, slightly sweet on the tongue, and he softly sighed.

Staring out over the dunes that make up the Shoeburyness beach, spanning out into the far, far distance, he saw strange, spiralling shapes that made his eyes water. Even before his eyes, the heavy dunes moved and shifted toward and away from the horizon, the fat chunks of grass hopping from one dune to the next, scurrying through fractal patterns as though they were dancing steps, this time eight beats, this time three, then six, then three, then four—

“Tadeus!” Peter called out, turning back, and Tadeus took a few moments before he raised his head from the hatch, meeting Peter’s gaze where he came to crouch over it.

“Only half a dozen injured, Captain, and no dead,” Tadeus said lowly.

“It doesn’t matter, lad,” Peter replied, giving a shrug of his shoulders. “It’s the end of the line.” Peter put out his hand, expectant, and Tadeus stared at Peter’s palm, at the rough-hewn surface of his skin, and when he lookeed up to Peter’s eyes, Peter saw the lovely, lovely fear there.

Such a shame it wasn’t the time to enjoy it.

Tadeus, hands shaking just slightly, bowed his head and drew the whistle on its chain from about it, setting it into Peter’s palm.

“You can run, if you like,” Peter said mildly. “I won’t mind.”

“Is— Is it better to be Forsaken, than whatever that is?” Tadeus asked, and his gaze flitted from Peter’s face to the shifting, spiralling dunes. His lips were parted, and he looked not terrified, nor desperate, nor even angry, but resigned. He knew this would com, one day, Peter supposed. This, or something like it.

“I think so,” Peter said. “But I could kill you, if you’d rather. I think you’d prefer that, Tadeus.”

“You wouldn’t rather condemn me with the rest?”

“I would,” Peter allowed, shrugging two great shoulders, and he smiled, very kindly, very warmly. Tadeus shivered. “But we’re friends, you and I. I’m willing to make a sacrifice for you before I attend to my… Ha. My other responsibilities.”

For a moment, Tadeus was quiet and taciturn, and then he reached out, his hand touching Peter’s chest underneath the thick fabric of his woollen coat, touching only more corded wool, but he relaxed as though he found a heartbeat there, his eyes closing shut. He nodded his head, slowly, and Peter smiled, reaching out to cup his cheeks.

He was merciful twice over – a quick snap, and that was all, Tadeus falling forward and into his arms.

Peter slung the body over his shoulder, clambering down one of the ladders to the shifting sands, and he walked with Tadeus going slowly cool against his chest. It would figure, he supposed, that the Distortion would complete their ritual, and rain their strange terror down on the world… And what terror it was.

It would be difficult to say how far he walked from the _Tundra_, but he kept the old boat in sight, and when he blew on the whistle, the fog rolled in thick and heavy from the sea, coiling about the ship in fat, heavy twists that were still too thick and too _normal_ to be of the Spiral. They shared… It could hardly be called an alliance.

It is simply that they were too similar to easily destroy one another, case in point – Peter walked, never lost, over the beach, looking out over the plains that now made up Essex. It would be a long, long walk, were it not for the souls in the Lonely to nourish him, as he made his way west.

He could follow the Thames.

Even spiralling, twisting, he knew her well enough to follow her home.

\--

He laid Tadeus down outside London. He didn’t even need to bury him: the brick of the cobbles shifted and twisted about his body until it was swallowed down beneath the brick and brick and earth and earth, and Peter walked on, into the city. The corridors made by too-tall buildings twisted unnaturally, but Peter kept on a straight path, forcing them to spiral around him.

He heard the screams, of course.

They were distant, tangled up amidst their own insanities, so caught up as to forget to even be lonely. It was tragic, in a way.

So close to that beautiful _perfection_, and yet so, so far away—

The Magnus Institute was dark, but Peter didn’t need much light to traverse the strange, unnatural corridors. The scant oil light allowed him enough to see his way, and he moved down the corridors in search of Jonah’s— of James’—

—of Elias’ office.

The door creaked loudly when Peter pushed it open, although he knew that Elias was near obsessive about keeping the hinges oiled, to avoid such _pedestrian_ displays of theatricality. In the dark, he saw the still new, still not-quite-familiar shape of Elias’ body on the floor, and he actually felt a twinge of panic before he confirmed that Elias was sitting up and supporting his own weight, even though he was on the ground.

He was leaned forward, his knees drawn halfway up toward his chest, his arms loosely wrapped around his knees, his hand curled into his usually perfectly-coiffed hair. Peter stared down at him, scarcely silhouetted by the oil light from the corridor.

“Sulking, are you?” Peter asked, and in the half-light he saw Elias’ mouth fall open, saw his head rise. So much emotion could be gleaned from that slackening jaw, that gasp of eager relief.

“Peter?” Elias asked, and Peter chuckled lowly, taking a slow step forward in the dark, his hands sliding into his coat pockets. Elias was facing away from him, half of his face still in shadow, and Peter reached out, sliding his hand into Elias’ hair. Elias did not go so far as to sigh, but he did lean his head minutely back into Peter’s hand, which was the biggest sign of distress Peter could hope for.

“Hi, honey,” he purred. “I’m _home. _Guess Gertie took her attention off the pot, hm?”

“She made to intervene,” Elias said lowly. “Evidently, the intervention in question was insufficient. Welcome unto the Great Untwisting, Peter. Do enjoy your stay.”

“You and I are better suited than most,” Peter said mildly. “Better the Spiral than the Desolation – or, God forbid, Hunt. I hate running. It’s undignified.”

Elias’ head turned slightly wrong toward him. He did not turn to face Peter, but turned his ear to listen to him, and yet the angle at _which_ he listened was… Hm. Peter gently scratched over Elias’ scalp, and then stepped around Elias to look at his face.

The gaping sockets that were once his eyes were scraped clean, blood stained rusty-red on his cheeks and his forehead. Peter suppressed the twin urges to gasp and to clutch Elias close to him; equally, he felt a surge of distant triumph.

“Oh, Elias,” Peter murmured, feeling the grin come to his mouth and hoping that Elias would be able to hear it in his voice. “I see. Obviously, you aren’t _using_ your eyes sufficiently, so why should you get to keep them?”

“You assume it was my patron that took my eyes?” Elias asked, but his lips quivered. He looked deliciously pale, and his skin was chalky – the terror rolled off of him in waves, the fear of blindness, of not knowing, and of course, of course, of _being alone_. It was such a lovely thing, to see Elias _vulnerable_, without the Eye to protect him. “I might have removed them myself.”

“No,” Peter said.

“… No,” Elias agreed, and Peter’s hand cupped Elias’ cheek.

“I always told you, darling, that my work came with more benefits than yours.”

“Because you looked only for the benefits,” Elias said, disapproval dripping from his voice, and Peter tipped his chin up to look better at the bloody, empty sockets, to admire the smoothness Elias’ patron had punished him with. “Your worship was never selfless.”

“And yet here I am, rewarded,” Peter purred, “whilst you are shivering in your sanctum, blinded, and afraid.”

Elias shuddered, and Peter cupped his cheeks, sliding his thumbs over the stubble on Elias’ cheeks – he couldn’t shave, of course, without a razor, and he had no doubt been alone in the spiral for days on end. He leaned in, closer, brushed his lips against Elias’, felt how cool they were, felt how he shivered, and then surged in for more, wanting for the heat of Peter’s tongue and his mouth, the assurance that Peter was here, and real.

It was for that reason that Peter broke them apart, and the broken noise Elias released from the very back of his throat was an ecstasy of sublime proportions, a delicious morsel that settled on Peter’s tongue, and he _savoured_ it. The world had gone mad, gone mad and abandoned the monster that was Elias Bouchard, and now he was there for the taking.

“I can kill you, if you like,” Peter said softly.

“Just so you can be alone?” Elias asked, raising his head just slightly. “Is that what you offered Tadeus?”

“You know me so well,” Peter murmured. “I’d offer to keep you safe, sweetheart, but blind, powerless? You’d be _such_ a liability.”

“Very well,” Elias said, smooth as butter. “Leave me, then.”

He always did have an infuriating habit of calling Peter’s bluffs.

“You’re not even going to tell me, with the world ended and everyone going mad, that you’re glad to see me alive?”

“I’m afraid I _don’t_ see you alive, Peter,” Elias murmured, and Peter laughed, shoving Elias in the centre of the chest. Elias went down hard and fast – he must have been, Peter mused, _starving_. He couldn’t take in his usual sustenance, watching all that went on, and food in a world like this, real food, real nourishment, was near impossible to trust. Peter hadn’t looked yet, of course, but he _knew_ it – you’d think it was food until you touched it, tasted it, swallowed it, and then you’d find it was razorblades, or worms, or—

It was a lot of _effort_, keeping a pet like Elias.

Uppity, and irritable, and powerless in the way a _human_ never could be – blindness wasn’t just a loss of sight for him, but a loss of centre, of knowledge, of understanding, of _all he was. _All he was now, all he was _left over_, was Peter’s.

Elias’ head touched against the carpet on the floor, and Peter loomed over him, his forearms braced either side of his head, and Peter could see Elias’ face, the solemnity in it, the quiet, distant pain. It had nothing to do with Peter, nor with being lonely. Peter supposed it must be dreadfully hard going, to give up as much as Elias had to one’s god, and be rejected for it.

What the Beholding didn’t want, Peter was glad to take up instead.

“You were waiting in the dark,” Peter said, “to die.”

“I thought you were already dead,” Elias said softly. His eyes used to be so beautifully cold: Peter used to fantasize about drowning in them.

“You know,” Peter murmured, “if we put the world back together, your dear patron might give you your eyes back.”

“_Hope_?” Elias asked, and then laughed, low and dark and hoarse. “I changed my mind, Peter. Kill me.”

Peter kissed him instead, as the floor beneath them twisted into fractal after fractal, shattering into infinity like mad, mad glass.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr.](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) Requests open.
> 
> I have a Magnus Archives discord! [Join here!](https://discord.gg/c9aZWDz)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] A Seize of Collateral](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22105555) by [stardust_podfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardust_podfics/pseuds/stardust_podfics)


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